afterburner

I know when I was looking for a new car about 3 years ago, one of the options was a 03-04 IS200. However around this time there was the potential that because of the CO₂ emissions levels of these cars, it was going to cost £400+ a year in road tax. So in the end we bought a BMW 320d. I don't know if the tax was actually increased to that level or not, but if so, that is a potential put off for owners/buyers. In addition, insurance would have been more than for the BMW. I also think the lack of a diesel option for the IS200 now makes it a bit less desirable, especially with the current cost of fuel. So that also helps drive prices down. In our case, we preferred a diesel which was another reason we went with the BMW.

Last year we decided our old Golf Mk III needed replacement, so we once again looked at the IS200 since back in NZ my wife was a fan of the Toyota Altezzas which have become very common there. I was very surprised to see what good value they had become in the 3 years since I had last looked at them. In the end we bought a 2001 IS200 Sport with 72k miles for £2500 - a lot of car for the money in my opinion.

I will admit I kind of wanted a Mk IV VW Golf 2.8 V6 4-Motion, but after a quick test drive of one, my wife said she was scared they were 'too fast' and refused to drive it if I bought one!

So now we have two silver mid sized RWD saloons - how dull!

I think there is probably also an element of badge snobbery about it, which makes people look at the Germans more so than Lexus. I don't actually mind this - it makes the IS200 kind of rare around where I live, which I like.

Has anyone used the pads and disks from Japparts.co.uk? If so, any opinions?

I think 1 year is just about right - for 'car enthusiasts' it's probably a bit short as most of our cars will be well maintained anyway. But for your average Joe who couldn't care less about their car, testing once a year is probably a good thing. The amount of cars I see around with bald tyres, lights out, grinding brakes, and other obvious MOT fails is appalling.

It could be worse - in NZ, my cars all needed the MOT equivalent every 6 months. Trust me, that can become rather tiresome quite quickly.

My car is kind of old now, and probably only worth in the region of £2k. So I look to do most routine servicing and repairs myself. There are things I don't do, such as anything to do with suspension, timing belts, major work, but I'm a reasonably competent amateur mechanic and I don't mind getting my hands dirty, so I'll do the simple stuff if I can. This is stuff like routine servicing, fluid/filter changes, brakes, thermostats, etc.

I keep all receipts and mark the service book myself, so that the history is maintained. But I don't see the value of paying for someone else to do work I can do just as easily for a car such as mine.

Of course if my car were newer and more valuable, I would probably still use dealers or specialist independent garages (as I do with my BMW). The local BMW dealer is actually very reasonable on service costs, so I don't mind going there to maintain the dealer service history on that car.

I have Sky (mainly so I can watch cricket, Indycar, and the NFL) so I'll still be able to watch it, but it is a rather disappointing move.

The BBC F1 coverage has been great this year, and I can't see Sky putting together anything near as good ... although I'm willing to give them a chance. Then there is the inevitable return of advertising to the coverage - rather poor when you're paying a not-insubstantial sum anyway to watch it.

Sky can make a good start by hiring Ben Edwards (one of my favourite motorsport commentators), but I just know I'm going to be disappointed...

1984 Mitsubishi Tredia GLS

1986 Mitsubishi Cordia GSR 4WD turbo (was only 19, it got me in trouble once or twice)

1990 Honda Prelude Si-16

1990 Mazda Familia GT-X

1993 Mitsubishi Galant VR-4 (I loved this car - I raised power to 350hp, ran many drag and track events in it, put 100,000km on the clock, and it hardly put a foot wrong).

1997 Mitsubishi FTO GP Version R (lovely high revving V6 engine, quite hard and noisy ride, still liked it though)

1986 Mitsubishi Mirage CX-Si (crap runabout #1)

1985 Ford Laser Ghia (crap runabout #2, after gearbox blew on #1)

1998 Volkswagen Golf GTi Mk 3

1998 Renault Clio Biarritz

2003 BMW E46 320d SE (current)

2001 Lexus IS200 Sport (current)

I could probably also count a couple of my parents cars which were basically mine, namely:

1967 Mk I Mini Cooper S (probably the most fun car I've ever driven)

1975 Mini Clubman 1000

1990 Honda Integra XSi

Thanks guys for the suggestions.

I too thought it might be a Battery thing, but one of the keys has a brand new Battery (as it was completely dead when I bought the car), and that one won't work either. So both keys work fine in the car, yet refuse to open the boot. However I can open it with the key or with the lever in the cabin just fine.

I'll try the listening thing, but I suspect something's broken somewhere. If so and it's not an easy fix, I'll just live with it!

Hmm interesting - I've tried holding it down for over 10 seconds, the light flashes on the key, but nothing happens.

I might have to have a closer look at the keys themselves ... although it's odd that it happens on both.

It's not a massive issue ... just slightly annoying!

Hello all,

Please excuse the complete n00bie first post.

I have just bought a 2001 IS200 Sport. I notice that the keys (of which I have two) have a button which appears as if it should open the boot remotely. However this button doesn't seem to do anything on either key - pushing it does nothing.

I can open the boot fine using the drivers side lever, I've made sure the key slot is vertical, and both keys otherwise work fine. Is there something I'm doing wrong, or is something likely broken?

Feel free to tell me to RTFM ... unfortunately I can't as the car didn't come with one! I am looking to get one at some stage, as soon as I can find one that isn't overpriced. So apologies if this information is in the handbook

Thanks

I found it as it was consistently at the top of Google search results when I was looking for information about my new IS200 Sport.

Lots of very useful stuff around servicing schedules and costs found, so here I am!

Hello to everyone.